Your best family meals - designed to entice little fingers to dig in!

I'm really struggling with DS's food fussiness. He only wants to eat crunchy things like crackers, occasionally toast and fruit. He loves almost any kind of fruit, yoghurt, custard etc. Try to give him pureed veggies though and it's tantrum time. There are only a handful of meals we have that he also enjoys with us. Fish and salad is a favourite, however the salad ends up thrown on the floor... lol.

I'm tired of giving him fruit and toast etc for dinner.... that's not dinner! At the same time I don't want to resort to feeding him unhealthy foods, so I figure if he's full of fruit at bedtime, at least he's full.

Things he doesn't want a bar of include - red meat, (except mince.. strangely), any type of chicken, basically anything with 'texture'. He likes crunch, or smoosh only. Nothing chewy. I struggle to get him to try pasta, but then he'll chomp on a piece of sushi if I offer it.

Can't quite work out what his caper is!

So please, hit me with your best family friendly meals. Something we can all enjoy together, and I can prepare quickly after work.

Tonight I'm attempting tacos, in the hopes he'll enjoy the tortilla, and maybe some mince and cheese.

All you can do is keep offering a variety like you are and eventually he will eat it. Are you all eating together as a family? Eating with him will encourage him to eat what you eat. I can't see how old he is as I'm on tapatalk.
My daughters faves are spaghetti and other pastas, crumbed fish, any type of steamed veg, lamb chops on the bone.

He's 21 months. It's not always possible to eat together as I don't get home from work until 5-5.30 some nights, and by that time he's pretty unruly and it's dinner/bath/bedtime for him by 6.30. It'd really help if DP would organize dinner while I spend some time with DS of an evening...... but yeah. He's always too tired or whatever.

Perhaps with some quick meal ideas up my sleeve I can walk in and start cooking right away. Or prep them each night ready for the next day.

Mmm that's a tough one. I've heard that around 2 weight gain slows so they don't need as much food and also developmentally they can't sit for long so graze throughout the day. Does he go to daycare? Maybe chat to them, they usually provide good meals in centres and if his friends are eating then he probably will too. Could you give him snacks like cucumber, tomato, capsicum through the day with hummus and mountain bread or crackers. Steamed veggie sticks etc? My daughter loves to dip and loves lots of little things to nibble. You could do fruit sticks and yoghurt to dip fruit into. All you can do is to continue to offer healthy options, if he's hungry he will eat. So long as he is getting enough during the day he will be ok. It's hard of there's pressure from others to have your child sit and eat a meal but it really could just be a developmental phase.

Raw veggies.....broccoli. Carrots, beans, capsicum etc??

Agree with the dipping idea, DD loves pumpkin soup or lentil soup coz she loves dipping bread into it.
Corn on the cob?
Does he eat rice? Coz if you cook meals that have stuff that dissolves like eggplant, you can mix it into the rice and they don't tend to notice there's a veg in there.
DD loves eggs, hard boiled and also scrambled eggs.
Sausages?

anything with noodles/pasta
rissoles
frittas
stuff mixed in rice - curry, stew, whatever
hommus

Sounds like he'd probably prefer raw or whole pieces of cooked veg rather than puree?

If he likes fish, what about a tuna mornay (or other tuna dish)? Will he eat quiche or similar? Does he like stronger flavours? DD dominates anything with a strong flavour like Asian or Indian curries with rice.....

He's a bit curious about dipping, but generally once something is on his cracker/bread he'll wave it frantically trying to get it off... :rofl:

Any time I've given him raw salads/veg he turns his nose up at them, or throws them at me..... so unsure what to do there. I keep offering but they're never eaten.

He MIGHT give the tuna mornay a go, except he seems to take issue with ingredients being mixed together. Last night he cried all through dinner and threw his taco on the floor, so exasperated I gave him some fruit. I don't like to 'give in' but I don't want him to go hungry either.

I don't want to punish him for not eating, but I also don't want to encourage his tantrums thinking he'll get some fruit and crackers if he cries enough.

WWYD?

sounds alot like my older boy- he struggled with the textures of so many foods-
often their tastebuds get overwhelmed or they have trouble digesting the food, so they turn their noses up at them. Their taste buds are so sensitive at this age.
Even now at the age of 10 my son has an extrodinary pallet that he can tell what ingredients are in a dish by tasting them, and his sense of smell is really strong and accurate as well.
so ideas that worked were

- pasta- get the kids shapes - but keep the sauce separate- a bowl of cooked pasta, and a bowl of sauce- that way they can control how much sauce is on it- also hide alot of vegies shredded up finely and then pureed in the sauce- also then pureee the sauce b4 you serve it so it is smooth
-kanga bangers- kangaroo sausages- easy for them to eat and high in protien
-silverside was another meat he could get down- but it had to be in a sandwich
-rice with some cheese melted over the top- it holds together a bit and cuts down on the mess (you can even make them into rice balls)
- sausage rolls - homemade- full of hidden vegies of course
-whiting crumbed that you get from the meat section of the supermarket- its made by john west i think- my kids love them even now
-homemade sushi- nothing wrong with sushi for tea!
-chicken schnitzel- my DS could get it down as well and still a favourite- just keep chicken thin- i also make homemade 'nuggets' the same way but just bite sized versions
-lasanga- easy for them to eat texture wise
-pita wraps with chicken in them
-the only vegies he could sort of get down was peas and corn- everything else including mashed potato - was too texturally overpowering for him
cucumber was my saviour
- deli meat platter- get some cold cuts from the deli and roll them and put them on a plate!!
also plenty of fruit was eaten as substitute for vegies !!!
cruskits were also my standby supper if nothing much had been eaten for dinner and they had eaten their fruit.

food they he just couldnt get down or chew properly until recently were things like steak, roast meats, etc. they only way hey could get them down was to put them in a sandwich!!

hang in there and just keep trying and offering food in different states and different ways
(offer vegies cold or raw instead of warmed or cooked!)

Probably not quite what you are after!...but lately I've been making crepe type things for my kids (just plain flour, milk, egg) and putting in any combination of fillings I can think of! Vego, meat, seafood etc! I roll them up and cut it like sushi. It looks interesting which I think helps! The crepes can be made a day ahead, then at tea time I can just whip up the fillings which is very quick.

Another idea that works here (but isn't food as such) is presenting their food in a different way. Example- for some strange reason my boys are a bit picky at snack times when I present the food on a plate, but if I put in a bright cup, cupcake case etc they seem to eat it! Whatever works I say :P

Good luck!

Make a chow mein can put lots of vegies and meat it and and then break up crunchy noodles into it.

Our toddler always ate best when I let her help me make it or at least saw it being put together so they could recognize what was going into the combined dish. A dish can probably look overwhelming to a small child but if we broke it down as we were making it (putting in carrot, good for your eyes so you will be able to see far, far away etc etc) then they seemed to respond well to almost anything!

Pizza can be a good thing to make with little hands - we have a colour guide in our family of having to make a rainbow of different colour options basically, we kind of make it a competition of who can use the most colours even lol. So on her pizza she might pick capsicum (yellow, red, green or all three), sun-dried tomatoes, olives, pineapple or on a different day it might be roast pumpkin, capsicum and spinach leaves. She loves being able to pick combinations and sprinkle them on and although pizza isn't a great food, you can sneak some good servings of vegies in on them really. We usually do this once a week or fortnight and have a picnic dinner which is also popular - eating somewhere different! Communal plates are good. Raw vegies have always been popular so I keep a lunchbox of celery, baby corn, capsicum, cucumber, carrot and some cheese in the bottom of the fridge that is a free for all during the day and usually all gets eaten so even if the rest of the day is a bit of a bust I don't feel too bad. We do the 'give it a try at least, if you don't like it you don't have to eat it but you have to at least try before you know right?'. Offer the same things over and over, can take them a while to work up to trying new things but exposing them multiple times helps. We started growing vegies too which seems to encourage their consumption. Always has to sit with us at the table even if not eating, usually they start picking at it. Getting some off mum or dads plate.

I think the main thing is just getting them involved in the process.